First Rate Second Hand Calendars

First Rate Second Hand is a wall calendar of photo collages that was collaboratively produced by artists Sophy Naess and Carmelle Safdie between the years of 2006 and 2015.

Each year during the ten-year project, the artists visited thriftstores and used the stores’ merchandise to dress up and perform bizarre and humorous scenarios for the camera. Photos taken in the store were collaged into popular and vernacular images found through Google image searches, and then printed as a spiral-bound monthly calendar.

First Rate Second Hand was printed in an edition of approximately 200 each year, and distributed by Printed Matter in New York. The calendar was also featured in the Aperture book Self Publish Be Happy, and the artists presented a lecture about the project in The Classroom at the MoMA PS1 Printed Matter Book Fair in 2015.

Project site: www.harryhoudini.me